Electricity generation from a solar parabolic concentrator coupled to a thermoelectric module
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Publication Details
Author list: Lertsatitthanakorn C., Jamradloedluk J., Rungsiyopas M.
Publisher: Elsevier
Publication year: 2014
Volume number: 52
Start page: 150
End page: 158
Number of pages: 9
ISSN: 1876-6102
eISSN: 1876-6102
Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)
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Abstract
The concept of generating electricity from the sun's energy using a parabolic concentrator and a thermoelectric (TE) module is presented in this study. The proposed TE solar concentrator was composed of a parabolic dish collector with an aperture of 1.5 m that was used to concentrate sunlight onto a receiver plate with an area of 10 ื 10 cm2. One BiTe-based TE module installed on the receiver plate was used to convert the concentrated solar thermal energy directly into electric energy. A rectangular fin heat sink coupled with a fan was used to release heat from the cold side of TE module and a tracking system was used to continuously track the sun. The effects of fan orientation and air flow rate were investigated. Under maximum heat flux, the TE module was able to produce 1.32 W at 0.42 m3/min of the air flow rate (pushing air), corresponding to 2.89% conversion efficiency. The proposed concept seems to be reliable and merits further investigation. ฉ 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Keywords
Electric energy, Solar thermal energy
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